Scavenger hunts – A birthday tradition

It all started when my son was 6. He wanted a lot of little things for his birthday and I was like let’s make it a scavenger hunt so that it’s more fun then just opening up a bunch of small presents. So my husband and I wrote out the clues and made a scavenger hunt. We even included a couple small gifts for our daughter along the way as well. They loved it so much and had such a blast. Then my daughter started talking about when it’s her birthday scavenger hunt. Then my son started talking about how he couldn’t wait for his next birthday scavenger hunt… And that is how this tradition came to be. So now every year we get them a couple things and have them run around the house following clues till they get to the big present. As they have gotten older and want more expensive things, they no longer get a present at every clue.

My son turns 10 this year and he’s been talking non stop about his scavenger hunt this year. I thought about telling him that this is the last year, but I am now leaning more to keeping it going for how ever long he likes. And for my daughter too. It’s fun to watch them wake up in the morning and run to the dining room table to get their first clue. Some of my favorite birthday pictures are them running around in their PJ’s finding the next clue.

We have discovered that there are a lot of websites that you can find clues to use. One of my favorite things to do is give a couple coupons too for things I know they are going to like. There are lots of free templates for those as well. You just print and fill them in.

That’s such a great idea! For the past few years, I’ve been doing something similar for my husband’s birthday, but I’m definitely going to start something like this for my son when he’s a little older!

The best birthday EVER was when my brother A did this for me – this was pre-internet and he had made all the clues up and I couldn’t get one and woke him up at 4am for the answer XD the only one I remember now is “Not by the sink, that would be too easy, go where you’d go, if you were feeling queasy”.

My birthday present at the end was in the weekend biscuit tin and it was a cassette tape of “remember you’re a womble” which was in the top 40 that year and my favourite song XD I was 8 and bro A would have been 13 which makes it a bit more impressive IMO that he had the patience to put all that together for me!